March 8th is International Women's Day

In1975, International Women's Year, the UN (United Nations) began celebrating International Women's Day annually on March 8th. Throughout the world there are events which bring women together to celebrate their strengths and successes.

It is an opportunity to look back at past struggles and achievements and, more importantly, to look forward to the accomplishments and opportunities yet to come.

Will you be celebrating International Women's Day this year?

I shall be celebrating in 2 ways.

On the day itself I shall be attending the annual celebration dinner of one of my networks in Den Haag (Women's Business International Initiative). From start to finish this is a true celebration of all we have achieved and all we will achieve in the future. It is a truly inspiring event.

But I'm also planning on paying a very personal tribute to women.

Earlier this week I was approached by a large corporation and asked if I would be willing to make small gifts for the women in their organisation. Obviously it's good for business to get your foot in the door of a large corporation.... you never know what may come of it. But after I agreed to their request, my focus changed somewhat when a little idea popped into my head:

"Why not support this fabulous day of celebration, personally?

Why not leverage off this corporation and donate a percentage of the revenue from the gifts they have ordered to give to charity?"

And that's exactly what I'll be doing.

I have decided to donate 25% of the revenue to a charity that supports women who are less fortunate than myself.

Whilst I've been so busy making up the gift bags that I haven't quite finely-tuned exactly which charity to help but I want to focus on a small, local charity that supports women suffering from domestic violence, or women needing sheltered accommodation, or women who have been caught up in human trafficking.

If you have any ideas of a suitable charity, please feel free to leave a comment below.

So for now I would like to wish you all a very special International Women's Day on Saturday.

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Comments

Thanks for the suggestion, Natalie. I am contributing to the WBII basket in the silent auction. But I like your suggestion so will certainly check out their website.

Posted on 5:38pm Thursday 6th Mar 2014

Natalie

Hi Viv, there's a Silent Auction at the WBII IWD dinner and this year, a portion of the proceeds is going to The Bijlmer Project (a grassroots collaborative project to address the psychosocial needs of victims of human trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation and to deal with the larger issue of modern day slavery). You'll hear more about it on the evening but in the meantime, you can check out their website here: www.thebijlmerproject.com - so that's one idea for you! Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday!!